Tra le macchine rigoglioso,
un groviglio intellettuale,
una missione di passione
Stremo inerziale,
sboccia nel domani luminoso. Michele Trevisan 2025-12-25

It all started in 1979 with an Apple ][ plus… some years ago

Full Stack Artisan

My name is Giancarlo Trevisan, I have been intrigued by computer science since 1979: I have read a lot about it, seen a lot, tried a lot, messed up a lot, plainly done a lot, and yet, a lot remains. I am a generalist and a minimalist, an interesting combination that philosophically guides me to a perceived yet elusive truth: I think that complexity is just a lot of simplicity.
In the 80s I was right in the middle of where I should have been, M.I.T. [MechE 2A BS ’87]; in those years I wrote a lot of C (BSD, X Window System) that transformed me, thanks to M.I.T. Project Athena, into a pioneer in the emerging educational computing arena, see ResearchGate. The X Toolkit was in its infancy, so I created a GUI library to assist me in the development of educational software.

In 1989, during an interview at Digital Corp. in Maynard MA, I realized the importance of protocols described with mathematical rigor; since then, I consider computer science the art of distilling patterned protocols.

I have been focusing on Internet technologies since 1996 ( years ago), keen on standards, patterns, and guidelines, distilling the essence of Internet developments in what I believe is a missing W3C protocol, see Spin the Web Project. The post Intervista describes the spirit of Spin the Web.

Genesis

The Name KeyVisions

The name has its origins in the early 80s with the KeyVision project: the project envisioned a computer keyboard whose individual keycaps housed a small programmable 32×32 LCD, the LCD could show, real-time, icons and characters sets in various languages, fonts, and styles, elevating the keyboard from a simple input device to a full-fledged I/O device. Back then KeyVision simply stood for keycap with a mini-display, today KeyVisions (one word) is a synonym for essential views. KeyVisions was founded on Jan 17th, 1996 ( years ago).

The Logo – ancient emoticon

Logo KeyVisions

The KeyVisions logo represents a tilted head (the Greek letter alpha) gazing up in a thinking state, a thought (the Greek letter zeta) that weaves as it raises to a Trademark symbol: an expression of KeyVisions motto Visualize then Realize.

• The Greek alphabet, ancient symbols that cradle western philosophy
• The letters α and ζ suggest a whole process (i.e. from A to Z), but the Greek alphabet starts with α and ends with ω!? Well, it’s called adaptation.